I’m looking for a non gunpowder civilization that isn’t good at turtling for a different style of my usual game play…
Then the best civs for that would be Huns and Aztecs: no gunpowder units at all, good bonuses to use for rushing and defensive weaknesses (Huns have no houses, Aztecs have no masonry)
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I think vietnamese would be worth a solid shot
https://aoe2techtree.net/?lng=en#Vietnamese
Reasons:
You start with enemy locations mapped out
(Can make it much easier for consistently finding and focusing your offensive on the opponent while already knowing how to avoid the town center or to use early laming)
Eco upgrades don’t cost wood, so more for archers or other needed things
Archery range units have +20% hp which helps allot for both skirmishers and basic archers.
The rattan archer gives you a solid anti-archer archer unit that also does well vs mangonels and onagers.
(More forgiving if hit by one)
Conscription is free so that’s extra resources to spend on military while also speeding up production.
You even have siege engineers and bombard canons which will help with sniping siege and archers from a distance
You’ll have halberdiers for hitting cavalry
Your battle elephants have a solid amount of hp, so they’ll soak up damage vs melee and archer units while your archers do work
Make sure to use herbal medicine often
( both your archers and your elephants are very much worth healing)
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Incas could be a cool Meso civ if you want to try that out - they’re the most defensive of the three, can go Archers with them, or Eagles! Cheaper Stone buildings means cheaper towers and castles, both of your UUs are amazing at what they counter.
They play very similarly to Byzantines, in that they have a very open tech tree and can do different counters to everything. You also have a pretty smooth early game with free llama and houses giving 10 pop bonuses.
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